Chitwan – Boat Tour, Jungle Walk, Elephants

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Alan Stock

Day 62 – Location: Chitwan National Park; Nepal

01/11/12

Me, Reznas and Marcus were up at 6am to hop into a narrow wooden canoe with Narayan (now decked out in his green park guide uniform) and some other tourists. The canoes are hollowed from a single trunk and sit below the waterline, ours was fully loaded so there was only an inch from the water to the top of the canoe. Water swished around the bottom of the canoe and there were very uncomfortable wooden seats which sat flat on the bottom. Wet bums were the order of the day.

Despite the discomfort the surroundings were very nice. The river was bathed in mist slowly rising off the water, as the sun peeked through. It was really quiet, a lovely atmosphere. The river isn’t very strong and we were paddled along for about an hour. Along the banks were birds like storks and we even saw peacocks up in the trees. Quite bizarre when you’re used to seeing them wandering around in posh estate gardens in the UK. One of the guides was constantly pouring water out of the canoe bottom with a cut-off bottle. I hoped he wouldn’t have to speed up or we’d be getting very wet.

We didn’t see much beyond river birds, trees and long grass, but it was a nice trip, aside from the painful bum and legs from the cramped position. At one rapid section waves sloshed into the boat soaking my feet and legs. There wasn’t much you could do about it – anyone moving at all would cause the boat to rock in an alarming manner anyway. We dropped off the other tourist group who climbed into the jungle for a safari walk, and the rest of the trip was much comfier with the extra room. We saw a Gharial crocodile on the bank, with its long snout peppered with long teeth. They’re endangered here and a breeding plan has released some more into the wild.

My friend Reznas

We stopped next to the long grass and disembarked. We were walking to the elephant breeding centre nearby. On these safari walks you can get up close and personal with the animals, which can sometimes be dangerous. The guide book warns of the attacks that have occurred on tourists in the park from the wildlife. The guides only have a bamboo stick for protection, so you listen to them and do as they say if you run into trouble. Narayan briefed us on the dangerous animals and how to deal with them. Most only are aggressive if they have young nearby.

The grass is so high in places that you can’t see over it

With rhinos you run for trees to climb, and try and get out of their line of sight as their eyesight is poor. You can throw clothes, cameras, bottles and bags to try and divert their attention. Wild elephants you shouldn’t encounter in this season, but normally you’d just back away and hope for the best. Tigers are so rare they aren’t a problem, but loud noise and sticks can sometimes deter them – otherwise you’re in big trouble. The most dangerous animal is the sloth bear, as it’s really aggressive. With them you need to group together, make lots of noise, and try to hit its sensitive nose and head.

The possibility of encountering animals like this becomes very real when you are completely surrounded by grass higher than your head, only able to use your ears and eyes to spot movement nearby. We weren’t in the long grass for long though, and it soon opened up to a bushy plain. We passed fresh rhino dung, but couldn’t see any rhinos. Up ahead Narayan spotted some spotted deer, which scarpered when they caught wind of us. We entered the trees and there was a sudden explosion of movement in the undergrowth. My heart rate doubled wondering what was coming. It turned out to be some wild pigs which ran off. Narayan spotted a green parakeet up in a tree and Marcus erected his tripod to get a photo. With my big zoom broken, my parakeet was a little dot on the photo, whereas his was almost full screen.

We wandered through the trees and Narayan motioned to stop. Up ahead he pointed out a massive herd of spotted deer, maybe around 100 of them, grazing in a clearing ahead. There were a few stags. Very nice to be able to get this close to the wildlife. As we got nearer they caught our movement and trotted off into the undergrowth. We passed termite mounds scattered beneath the trees, some with signs of damage where bears or other animals had broken inside to munch on the little critters. Soon we reached the elephant breeding centre and saw other people again.

Some of the deer herd. Unfortunately my big zoom lens was still broken at this point!

The centre was a small info room and then a line of tall shelters underneath which the elephants were chained by the back foot. These elephants are used in a breeding program and also trained to ride by the army patrols (who stop poachers) and other work. They are trained from a young age to follow commands and get exercise every day. There’s all manner of tools used in the training and command of the mighty beasts. There were probably around 30 adults and a number of youngsters, plus a few babies. They rocked rhythmically back and forth on their short chains, like they were walking without being able to walk. Although it seemed pretty harsh, from the write-up it seems their lives are pretty decent as far as captive animals go, they’re well fed and get out at least twice a day.

One baby wasn’t chained and was up at the visitor fence (you can’t get too close to the chained ones due to this). It was cute and we could touch its weird hairy skin and when I held its trunk it grabbed my hand playfully. It was pretty cool. There wasn’t much else to see and we walked back across a footbridge for a jeep pickup back to the lodge.

After lunch the friendly resort owner asked if we wanted to bath with the elephants. You only need to pay a small tip to the handler. We agreed and went along the riverbank to the beach area where all the elephants from the nearby working elephant camp were here getting their daily wash. The handlers lead them into the river, sometimes with tourists on their backs, and they’re trained to squirt water onto their riders. Afterwards they lie down in the river and the handlers wash and scrub them with stones. A big one with a painted face was commanded to lie down so me and Reznas could climb up on it, needing a leg up from the handler. I grabbed on tight to the neck strap (there was no saddle) and we went into the shallow river. On command the elephant doused us with water from his trunk quite a lot and we laughed at other screaming tourists getting the same treatment. The water was pretty nasty filled with poo and other niceties – not stuff to swallow! Then the elephant lay down and rolled over throwing us into the river, which is pretty normal. We climbed back on, had some more washing and were led back out. It was good fun. The elephant was quite happy for you to come close and stroke her, and the trunk was strong when I shook “hands” with it.

I popped back to the lodge to grab my camera as Marcus received the same treatment, and returned to capture the end of the bathing. The elephants were very obedient as their handlers washed and rode them. One guy had such good balance he could stand on his elephant’s back as it bathed and walked around. The elephants seemed to like lying in the river, their trunks poking out like snorkels. The info in the breeding camp said that 70% of their air comes through the trunk.

After a much needed shower we departed for an elephant safari, getting a jeep back to the breeding centre location. Here there were loads of elephants with handlers and high wooden platforms where you could board the elephants. There were lots of tourists getting on board. Me and Reznas climbed onto a young elephant. There’s a square wooden platform with rails all around on the back of the elephant, and two Nepali guys joined us up there.

We’d been warned about the comfort of these platforms and had brought extra padding, which turned out to be a very good idea. We set off, the handler sitting on the neck and armed with a big stick which he rapped the elephant on the head with, plus a small metal spiky stick for emergencies. We were taken to, brilliantly, the elephant-height ticket office. My shirt I’d brought for padding came loose and fell to the ground. I told the handler and he shouted a command, and the elephant picked it up with its trunk and handed it to the guy! Awesome! It was a bit covered in mud and elephant snot but intact.

Elephant ticket centre at elephant height!

We moved rapidly with a train of other loaded elephants across a shallow river and along a path in the jungle. It was noisy with everyone talking and shouting and I feared our chances of seeing anything were zero. We forded another river and entered the jungle again. Here the elephants split up a bit and we ended up going through paths right through the trees – with us having to shove branches out the way. I had to take my flip-flops off as they were almost wrenched away by branches. We forded a canal which was completely covered in plants, looking like ground from a distance.

Wading through the canal

The handlers were shouting to each other from time to time and we veered across to a clearing where they’d found a rhino! Sweet! They’re usually hard to see on the elephant safaris not being too fond of the animals and the noise of the tourists. They are white 1-horned rhinos only found in Asia. It was light grey. Unfortunately I didn’t get time to get any good photos and most of the view was of its bum. It looked great though (the rhino, not its bum). Its armour-plated hide looked invincible. Around it were about 5 elephants and it wasn’t bothered by the noise and proximity, grazing and wandering off slowly. The elephants didn’t hang around for long which was good, not disturbing it too much. We sauntered off and I was really happy to have seen one of Chitwans big animals.

Now we went completely separately from the other elephants and were all alone in the jungle following a network of paths. All you could hear was the sound of the jungle and the elephant moving through the undergrowth. We saw some monkeys in the trees and on the ground, and some deer really close. They aren’t bothered by the elephants at all. Our height was just right for spiderwebs and a number of times we got them in our face and hair, with the spiders crawling on us. Fortunately they weren’t the big ones I’ve seen everywhere else in Nepal. Nearby we heard a mighty roar and discovered it was an elephant, I’ve never heard them roar like a beast before, I thought they only trumpeted. After another twenty minutes we didn’t see much else and came back to the starting point, getting off and getting a jeep back to the lodge.

Bashing through the trees

With no other activities for the day, me and Razmus headed out along the riverside on a walk as the sun got lower. We entered a plains area and spotted a bright blue kingfisher on a dead tree in the river. I found a camera memory card on the ground here and decided to rescue it as it was late and most people are only here for a few days – maybe I could find the owner. Now and again we could hear mighty roars from an elephant at one of the camps which sounded in distress.

After about half an hour we reached the government elephant camp where tourists were getting guided tours. We walked around, it was similar to the breeding camp but there were bull elephants here, some with amazing huge tusks. They made the elephants I’d seen in Africa look tame. You can see why ivory reaches such a high price, it looks fantastic in nature.

Drying rice

We ran into Marcus who had been taking pictures all day. One of the elephants decided to produce his penis for us, it was about the length of my forearm! We moved on before he got any untoward ideas about our sexy European bodies!

Now that’s a well hung beast!

We found a guy who was making parcels from leaf strips filled with rice. These are fed to the elephants like snacks.

We walked out of the camp up the road through a lodge ground where we’d heard there was a baby rhino. Sure enough we found it chilling out on the grass, surrounded by people. It was just grazing and pretty cute, not bothered by the people at all. Someone told us it had been rescued from a tiger attack; it had a scar on its face which was plugged with material. It had been infected and very weak and was still recovering. As we watched it, it got tired and lay down and started to sleep, not caring a damn about the people snapping pics all around it! Cool.

Just ahead was the elephant camp for working elephants, the light was very nice in the sun and the wisping smoke from the burning piles of elephant poo all around added to the visual ambience.

We walked through this and back along to the sunset river view, where we stopped at a bar for a drink. Then we returned to the lodge for dinner, not dahl baht fortunately.

That evening we chatted to the American lady and I got some movies and music from her and Reznas, having no media since my hard drive crash in Thailand. I looked through the camera memory card I’d found. It was only photos from the last few days chronicling a couple’s travels in Chitwan. They were joined by a man with a massive white beard who looked a bit like a crazy Santa. Unfortunately there weren’t any photos of their accommodation, but they’d been on an elephant safari. The lodge owner called the elephant safari people to ask about a Santa lookalike. I left the memory card with him in case he managed to track the owners down. It was pretty weird seeing the photos from people you’ve never met, quite a personal thing. There was nothing juicy in there though, just the usual snapshots. They’d pretty much done everything that we had in Chitwan. I wonder if it will get back to Santa and his friends one day.

Chitwan National Park – Sauraha

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Alan Stock

Rhino skull in the Chitwan park museum

Day 61 – Location: Chitwan National Park, Terai Region; Nepal

31/10/12

I arrived at the Damside bus station around 6am and piled onto a tourist bus for Chitwan. This bus actually had decent seats and enough leg room, a rare luxury in Nepal! There was some mix up with the bookings causing a big argument with a group of French tourists and the bus operators. Basically there weren’t enough seats for the people. The arguments got heated as some people refused (quite rightly) to give up seats they’d booked in advance to make way for the French. In the end about 8 people were crammed into the back row, and someone always had to sit on a little stool in the aisle. The hubbub pissed me off, I was tired and I was just thinking – have you people ever been on a local bus? You should be happy to have room to stand!

This French group, mostly in their 50’s, were classic tourists, exclaiming loudly whenever the bus went over bumps and gasping in horror at the usual Nepal crazy overtaking maneuvers. You’d think they’d be used to it as they’d been trekking already, but apparently not. I was sat next to a classic stereotype French man, fat and who didn’t speak English who talked loudly to his friends at the start, and then got engrossed in his book which the title translated as “Tragedy on Everest”. A nice light read then. He seemed like a decent chap though and we communicated a bit with our terrible knowledge of each other’s language (you’d think after 5 months working in France I’d at least be able to have a conversation, but that’s Meribel for you!).

As usual there was no view, not having a window seat. Along the main road back to Kathmandu we forked right to the South towards the Terai region. You could glimpse big rocky hills covered in forest lining the gorge we were traversing, reminding me of Thailand. After about 4 hours we got into the heart of the Terai where the terrain was very flat. It’s the source of most of Nepal’s wealth with lots of industry and farming. We passed vast fields where harvesting was taking place with modern tractors and teams of people threshing rice and stacking it into big house-shaped piles for drying. The scale of their operations completely dwarfed the terrace farming I’d seen in the North and the landscape was dotted with stacks of rice and endless fields. We passed through a busy, dusty town and soon afterwards, after some more fields arrived in a dusty bus park where throngs of touts and drivers massed outside the bus door to greet us.

Rice team workers on the Terai plains

As I was on a package I didn’t have to contend with the hassle and found my driver easily. He drove me and some others in a jeep into the small town of Saurhara, the main tourist settlement in Chitwan. It was full of lodges and shops. We bumped along the untarmacked road to my lodge, Jungle Wildlife Camp. There are so many lodges that like in the mountains they run out of name ideas quickly. Jungle Lodge. Wildlife Hotel. Jungle Wildlife Hotel. Jungle Safari View. Tiger Lodge. You get the idea. Just remembering your correct lodge name is hard enough! Anyway, the lodge was right on the banks of the main river, which was pretty nice. An outdoor seating area lined the bank and on the other side of the river was tall green grass. Beyond that was a treeline with trees that reminded me of the ones from Africa but much more densely packed. It was pretty quiet with only a few other tourists chilling out having lunch.

My room was pretty good compared to what I’m used to now, I took my all-inclusive lunch (with all inclusive tiny glass of lemonade, of course you have to pay for extra drinks beyond that!). I rested for about an hour, knackered after the sleepless bus journey. Then I had a village tour from a local guide, a young guy called Narayan. Joining us was another package tourist, a big guy in his early twenties called Reznas, from Denmark. Narayan led us around the town showing us the local houses made from bamboo and mud, with little holes made in the latticing for windows. There were ducks everywhere, way more than I’d seen elsewhere in Nepal. The place was dotted with old style water pumps with the handles where people washed and collected water. The Terai region was only heavily populated in the last 30 or 40 years due to Malaria getting mostly eradicated. Before that only these local people could survive, having built up a natural immunity to the disease (or “Special Immunity Power” as Narayan called it!). Apparently eating chilies all the time helps. I’ll have to try, maybe I can banish my mosquito problem.

Traditional Chitwan houses have these “windows” letting in little light

Traditional handprint paintings on the walls of the houses

We walked into the main town which was fairly typical. There were tourists everywhere. Horse and carriages, and Ox’s carrying carts with tourists trotted along the street. Narayan said when he was a kid there was only about one guest house here. We reached the Chitwan information place, a boring collection of information boards about the park, with a few trinkets like tiger footprints and elephant skulls. There seemed to be a lot of British tourists here. We walked through some woods to the river, passing near to an elephant camp where you could see the big beasts from afar, tied up under big shelters.

We strolled along the tall riverbank walkway looking at the sunset. Over the river were swathes of big grass plains with trees in the distance. We weren’t alone; the place was thronged with groups of tourists enjoying the same view. Further along was a collection of bars at a beach where long wooden canoes seating around 10 people were ferrying tourists across the river with paddles and poles, where people emerged from safari walks from the long grass, which was higher than a person. We saw some crocodiles chilling out on sandbanks in the river. We watched the sunset from the beach. It was really touristy but quite a nice view. After the sun vanished we walked a few minutes to the hotel. It seemed we’d got lucky with our location, there were only a few other lodges on the river. Over a dinner of Dahl Baht we met a German guy in his 40s called Marcus, who had some heavy duty camera equipment. At the same time and place we’d just been, he’d spotted rhinos in the long grass across the river, and had the photos to prove it! I was annoyed we’d not spotted them. He had a nice big zoom and some great photos from along the river.

After dinner me and Reznas were escorted to a packed hall in the town centre to watch the Tharu Culture Show. The commentator was hilarious with a really weird voice, you could hardly understand him. Me and the other British teens in front of me couldn’t stop laughing at his odd sing-song introductions. The show turned out to be very entertaining. First off a load of guys in white dress and bandanas did a stick dance, smashing the sticks off each other in rhythm in a fighting dance.

Then some girls in great dresses did a singing and clapping dance. There was a fan dance and another stick dance. At this point I was puckish and decided to try some chewing tobacco stuff I’d bought in a sachet in Pokhara. The main ingredient I later learned is Beetlenuts. It’s pretty popular here and is sold in branded sachets in most shops. Anyway, I wasn’t prepared for the effects. It was a collection of brown hard bits, I stuck the whole lot in my mouth and chewed. After about ten seconds it tastes really horrible, and you produce loads and loads of saliva. It was disgusting! I needed to spit it out or I would throw up, so shouldered my way out of the hall and spat it all out outside. Of course you’re supposed to spit it out anyway, but I don’t think most people eat the whole pack at once!

I came back inside and soon after got a pretty good mild buzz effect as I picked bits from my teeth. The effect lasted for the next few songs, and was enhanced by how utterly bizarre the next acts were. First was a peacock dance where a person inside a big round peacock costume trotted around the stage swinging the neck up and down. It was hilarious. The best bit was at the end where the tail opened up unexpectedly. Me and Reznas were in stitches. Next was a death ritual celebrating the life of the deceased – but featured a camp man in weird clothes who danced very bizarrely and with funny facial expressions, who loved the attention of the audience. It’s probably not supposed to be funny, but it was. The show finished off with some spectacular whirling long stick dances and a fire dance in the dark with sticks reminding me of the beach fire shows in Thailand. One of the guys was so fast his fires went out! The other guy dropped his at the end on the floor and it had to get beaten out. The whole show was a bit ramshackle with the performers not really knowing what was happening most of the time. At one point a girl put down the microphone and it rolled along the whole stage drowning out the performance with the noise! Brilliantly entertaining.

The bizarre peacock dance

We walked back in the dark (no street lights here) and had a beer with the other lodge guests outside. There was an old French couple, an American woman and the German guy, sharing travelling stories and Nepal experiences. We called it a night early as we had a dawn rise tomorrow.

Pokhara Paragliding

Posted on February 9, 2013 by Alan Stock

Day 60 – Location: Pokhara; Nepal

30/10/12

I went to the travel agents office at 9am, where I was picked up in a jeep with a few other people for the paragliding. We stopped at the paragliding office where the instructors loaded the parachutes in massive backpacks onto the roof, and hopped in the back. They were all western. We set off and drove up the road to Sarangkot where I’d seen the sunrise a few weeks ago. Near the top on one of the hairpins were a bunch of people, and a big winch which was pulling a car up from a sheer drop into the forest! You couldn’t see the front of the car but it must have been fecked. I wonder if the driver survived. The roads is very narrow and at every corner the cars honk before going round the bend, but with the madness of the drivers here and the old vehicles it was probably a swerve to avoid collision, or a brakes failure. I wondered whether the inhabitants had survived, it would have been a long drop. Amazingly it’s the only road accident I’d seen so far despite the crazy roads here.

We passed through Sarangkot village and onto a bumpy dirt road which took us to the top. There was a stream of paragliders and porters carrying the big parachutes up the path to the takeoff area. This was a sloping patch of grass overlooking the Pokhara valley. We got some brief instructions and were paired off with instructors. I got a friendly, bearded American guy called Mitch. He laid out his parachute flat on the slope behind him, strapped his harness on and my harness clipped to his. We were one of the first to leave. I had my camera around my neck, but we had to clip it behind the chest straps so it wouldn’t smash me in the face when we took off. Unfortunately that made photography limited as it was trapped by my chest and I couldn’t make adjustments to the photos easily.

Mitch gets us ready to go

We had to run down this slope to take off

I was strapped to Mitch’s chest, and so to take off I had to run hard down the hill. He said don’t stop unless I tell you to. I ran as hard as I could; you have to have faith as it feels like you’re hurling yourself towards your doom. I felt a hard resistance pulling me back and kept running, held in place as the parachute behind me raised up. Then we surged forwards again and in a few seconds our feet left the ground and we were flying. It felt surprisingly solid and pretty cool. The ground soared away beneath us and I shifted back into the cradle seat which was comfortable.

We soared through the air amongst many other paragliders. The view was good but very hazy today, it was better looking at the ground below and I really felt like a bird. We hit a thermal and felt the hot air pulling us upwards. The thermals work like carousels with the paragliders, they travel around them in circles in one direction, and there are right of way rules to avoid collisions. There were probably about ten other paragliders up here with us. It was a cool feeling.

As we swooped around I was chatting with Mitch about his sport. He started doing it in Utah and had been doing it for about 8 years, progressing to tandem flights recently which are completely different due to the weight, size of the chute and the responsibility for another person. He said sometimes people are freaking out, being sick or whatever. He’d had no accidents aside from a fall when taking off – sometimes people trip or the chute can snag and people fall flat on their face. I met a girl about a week later who had done just that and had the scar to prove it! When alone he likes to do cross country paragliding, where you just float around for miles and miles picking up thermals on the way. As long as you always have scoped a potential landing site within a safe distance, you can continue doing this as long as you can keep finding thermals, and he told me about people who have travelled over a hundred miles doing this!

I asked about thermals and he said they depend on the angle of the sun and the ground below. We left the main thermal as we were getting low and he steered us over forest and fields to find another. By looking at the ground he spotted a potential place, over some harvested rice where he said the ground would be emitting more heat. Sure enough we were gusted up in a strong thermal and gained more airtime. Soon this thermal was packed as other paragliders spotted what we were doing – when someone finds a good thermal everyone else can join in too. It was peaceful up here, not noisy at all, we could easily hear each other talking and there was hardly any wind noise. The chute always felt very stable too.

It was only a half hour booked flight and this early in the morning the thermals aren’t too strong. I’d chosen the early morning session for the views, but actually the big mountains are behind you anyway, they looked great on the drive up but after that the view is just the same as from Sarangkot. In future I’d instead want to try a midday session for longer when the thermals are better. As we got lower to the landing site by the lake, we started to do some tight spiral turns for fun. You get some g-force and an adrenaline rush from the maneuvers, it was cool. We came in quite fast to land, and he told me to hit the ground running. I thought we were in for a hard landing but at the last second he pulled up sharply, bringing us to almost a stop and we plopped neatly onto the ground with W a few paces needed to stop us completely. Very professional! We watched others landing, most of whom landed on their bums on the air pads there. We were the super-pros. Mitch told me when you get good, you can land within a space of a few meters. When the others had arrived the guys packed up their chutes and we took the jeep back to Lakeside a few minutes away. It had been a good experience and I’d like to try it again for longer, and with more stunts.

After chilling out I walked about half an hour to the tourist police station in Pokhara. The woman there was friendly and I filled out a police report for my stolen things. But really annoyingly, there is a government policy that they won’t add stolen cash to any police report! What the hell! I’d lost about 500 quid and without having it listed on the report, there was no way I could claim it back from the insurance. I pleaded with the woman but as it was policy there was nothing she could do. I decided to take it up with the embassy when I arrived back in Kathmandu.

The landing site

I spent the rest of the day getting organized and on the internet. In a stroke of luck Bikrant, the guy from Fantastic Nepal who had shown me around the Indra Jatra festival in Kathmandu was in town. I met him for dinner and we caught up. Coincidentally he was off to Chitwan as well, to see a relative there for the festival. I had an early night because tomorrow I’d be up early for the tourist bus.

Alan Stock Photography

My travelling (mis)adventures. It's ok to cry.

Category Archives: Nepal